'John Tognolini has been a rare voice and witness for justice in Australia, chronicling the struggles of Indigenous Australians and veterans and the deceptions of power from behind the facades of a society that prefers not to know. I salute him.'
John Pilger

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Friday, September 02, 2016

With Roger Rogerson getting a life sentence today I thought it would be fitting to share this article I wrote back in 1994. It will along with other articles and interviews I did for Green Left Weekly and Sydney's Radio Skid Row in my new book A
History Man’s Past & Other People’s Stories: A Shared Memoir. Part 2:
What Is My Nation? History, Racism, Class, Justice & War. which I'm aiming to have at my publisher next month. It says something about those of us who campaigned against Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and were involved in campaign when Tim Anderson was framed for the Hilton Bombing. The quashing of Tim Anderson's conviction lead to the ICAC Inquiry into Police and Police Informers and this lead to the Police Royal Commission.

Of the
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody's 339 recommendations, there
was not one for charging a police or prison officer for murder.

At the
annual John Pat protest march over Aboriginal deaths in custody on September 25
[1994], the day after the 2000 Olympic decision had been announced, I asked
Burraga Gutya (Ken Canning), an Aboriginal poet and lecturer at the University
of Technology, Sydney, what he thought of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal
Deaths in Custody.

He
replied, "Shit — garbage — rubbish. Not one person's been charged, and
there's been evidence of brutality against our people. There's been unanswered
questions about how our people were found killed. Where are the policemen in
jail on murder? All these people along the footpath ... think the royal
commission's been good ... They don't know that the police that have done the
killing are still in the police force."

Ted
Pickering, the former police minister who defended the police killing of David
Gundy in 1989, saying that he could understand his police being "up
tight" and "edgy".

The
Campaign Exposing Frame-Ups and Targeting Abuses of Authority wrote to Pickering
in April 1990, when he was police minister, warning him not to promote these
same three officers: Chief Superintendent Brian Harding, Chief Superintendent
Dennis Gilligan and Chief Inspector John Burke. All three are former associates
of disgraced ex-sergeant Roger Rogerson, and all worked closely with him in the
old CIB's notorious armed hold-up squad. Pickering's response to CEFTAA was
dismissive.

Case
histories

CEFTAA
has set up a database on Australian police. The aim of this Alternative Bureau
of Criminal Intelligence is to develop and maintain a body of information,
particularly on corrupt serving police.

The ABCI
files on the above senior police officers provide an insight into how
unaccountable the NSW police force is.

1979:
Fabricates a confession in a conspiracy case against several Croatian men; the
chief witness later confessed to perjury, while in 1991 Harding's former
colleague Roger Rogerson admitted his squad regularly fabricated confessions.

1983:
Fabricates confession against Ray Bronlowe, who was later acquitted of robbery
charges.

1984:
Taped with Burke, Gilligan and others in the process of planting half a pound
of heroin on drug dealer David Kelleher; Kelleher is acquitted on this charge.

1984:
Neddy Smith says he paid Harding $12,000 to prevent charges over the assault of
a Sydney RSL bouncer; no charges were laid.

1989:
Fabricates confession against George Savvas over the murder of Barry McCann;
Savvas was acquitted of this charge in a trial in which Laurie Gruzman QC
accused Harding of benefiting from the proceeds of McCann's heroin ring.

1989:
Tells the media the day after David Gundy was shot dead by police that "a
preliminary report has cleared the SWOS officer of any wrongdoing". Royal
commissioner Hal Wooten concluded "at no stage did Harding face up to a
real examination of the issues that arose in relation to police conduct".

1993:
Harding, Burke and ex-cop Graham Bowen bugged by Federal Police as they
discussed statements on two bribery matters before ICAC; all had been directed
not to do this and had then lied under oath about the matter; ICAC charges
pending.

8:th
Gilligan and Bob Godden,fabricated "confession" and other evidence
against Ross Dunn in the Ananda Marga conspiracy case; while Dunn was later
pardoned, Burke went on to receive a bravery award and a Churchill fellowship
to study terrorism.

1984:
Named by Federal Police informer Stephen Bazley as involved with drug
trafficking; Bazley's wife Louise later says she is loaded up hashish by Burke,
and is acquitted of the charge.

1984:
Taped with Gilligan, Harding and others in the process of planting half a pound
of heroin on drug dealer David Kelleher; Burke lies at trial about inducements
to a witness to give evidence against Kelleher; corrupt Detective John Openshaw
quoted Burke as saying Kelleher had been "embarrassing too many people for
too long" and "had to go"; Kelleher is acquitted of this charge.

1984:
Barrister John Bettons accuses Burke of giving heroin to robbery suspect Mark
Treloar at Eastwood Police Station; Treloar was taken to Ryde Hospital
suffering from heroin overdose; however, Treloar pleads guilty to the robbery charge.

1989: In
charge of the SWOS squad that killed David Gundy; Royal commissioner Wooten
said, "The tunnel vision of and self-satisfaction of SWOS was manifest in
Burke".

1993:
Bugged by Federal Police while discussing bribery evidence with Brian Harding;
Burke had previously denied on oath that he had done this; ICAC charges
pending.

Dennis
Martin Gilligan

1977:
With Bob Godden gives evidence of the Nowra arrest of Edward "Jockey"
Smith, in which the two claim to have just prevented Smith from shooting them;
Smith receives a life sentence for this.

1978:
With Bob Godden gives evidence of the Yagoona arrest of Ross Dunn, in which the
two claim to have just prevented Dunn from killing them; their evidence is
contradicted by independent witnesses. Gilligan, Godden and Burke then
fabricate a "confession" by Dunn. Dunn is pardoned but Gilligan
retains a bravery award.

1978:
Fabricates a "confession" by Gregory McCarthy in an armed robbery
trial; however, in his "verbal" Gilligan is exposed in having his
suspect quote an error the bank made in reporting the amount stolen, and
McCarthy is acquitted.

1981:
With Rogerson and Burke, Gilligan writes to Sydney Morning Herald on June 10 to
claim responsibility for the Ananda Marga conspiracy case and to tell the
Herald not to "cast aspersions on the character and integrity of men who
are serving this state and country".

1984:
With Harding, Burke and others, taped in the process of planting half a pound
of heroin on drug dealer David Kelleher.

1988:
Appointed superintendent and made chairperson of interdepartmental committee
supervising the introduction of videotaped police interrogations (the supposed
safeguards against police "verbals").

1989:
Confronted by Tim Anderson, the victim of two NSW police frame-ups, at a public
meeting over his verballing and bashing of Ross Dunn in 1978.

1993-94:
Being considered for appointment as assistant commissioner.

'Redneck
state'

Gilligan,
Harding and Burke are three of the most senior police in NSW, and their careers
have benefited from the harsh law and order politics of both Labor and
Liberal-National governments. The group which has suffered most has been the
Aboriginal people.

Chris
Cunneen, a lecturer in the University of Sydney Law Faculty, says, "Even
now there's well over double the number of Aboriginal people in jail in New
South Wales that there was in the late 1980s. This shatters the illusion NSW is
a more civilised state. It is now a leading redneck state second only to West
Australia."

Aboriginal
people make up 1.3% of the state population yet they make up over 10% of the
adult prison population.

I asked
Arthur Murray, a field officer for the Aboriginal Legal Service, if there had
been any death like that of his son Eddie in NSW, who was found dead in a cell
in Wee Waa Police Station, strangled with a blanket with his feet on the
ground, on June 21, 1981.

He had
been picked up by the police one hour before his death under the Intoxicated
Persons Act, a law used almost exclusively against Aborigines. The police said
Eddie Murray hanged himself, but under cross-examination they agreed he was
"so drunk he couldn't scratch himself". His blood alcohol level at
the time of death was 0.3%, yet police maintained that Eddie had managed to
tear a strip off a thick prison blanket, deftly fold it, thread it through the
bars of a ventilation window, tie two knots, fashion a noose and hang himself
without his feet leaving the ground.

One
police officer admitted he had lied about being off duty that day, after he had
been identified by four Aboriginal witness as one of the policemen who picked
Eddie up. The coroner's inquest was informed of the serious discrepancies in
police notebooks, with dates appearing out of order and the absence of some
records altogether. Both the coroner and the Royal Commission found that Eddie
Murray had died "at the hands of person or persons unknown", strongly
criticised the police and left it at that.

Arthur's
answer to my question was, "No Aborigine has died in similar circumstances
since the royal commission. The royal commission has had some impact on the way
Aboriginal people are treated in New South Wales, but in an indirect way,
separate from its recommendations. Police who arrest Aboriginal people don't
like having them in their lock-ups and transfer them as quickly as possible to
the nearest prison. The overwhelming majority of deaths since the royal
commission have been in prison."

Over-policing

The October
1993 Journal of the Australian Medical Association published an article by
David McDonald from the Australian Institute of Criminology and Dr Neil Thomson
from the Health Department of West Australia.

They
reported that in the 10-year period from 1980-89 there were 527 deaths in
police and prison custody in Australia, of which 108 were Aboriginal — 10 women
and 98 men. McDonald and Thomson noted that the excess in numbers of Aboriginal
deaths in police and prison custody, compared with general population numbers,
is due to the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody.

The over
representation in custody is due to Aboriginal people being over-policed. In
Wilcannia, for example, which is overwhelming Aboriginal, there is one police
officer for every 73 people. The ratio for Sydney's lower North Shore is one
police officer to 1000 people.

This
policy by the police has been long pointed out by Aboriginal people and largely
ignored by the press. Aboriginal lawyer Paul Coe wrote in a paper to the Institute
of Criminology in 1980, "The present relationships between Aboriginal
people and the legal system with the police as agents can only be understood in
the light of two centuries of oppression of Aboriginal people".

Tim
Anderson says, "[N]o less than $500 million is being spent every year
simply on policing, processing, jailing and at times murdering Aboriginal
people. This is little short of a war on the Aboriginal population. Imagine
what could be done with half a billion, every year, to build economic
independence for Aboriginal communities, and so release them from the trap of
poverty and over-policing."

What we
are seeing with the Aboriginal people is the criminalisation of social problems
such as poverty; this is compounded by institutionalised racism from police and
prison officers.

Tim Anderson, Take Two, The Criminal Justice System Revisited, 1992

“At
the CIB Rogerson and another Detective named Howard eventually approached me
and I said: "I'm not going to answer any questions, can you tell me what
I'm being charged with?". Howard replied "Well slow down, you may not
be charged with anything." I said "It's a serious thing to arrest
someone and not charge them with anything." "Well we'd better charge
you with something then, hadn't we?" he responded. Rogerson then
approached and told me: "You are being charged with conspiracy to murder
Mr Robert Cameron." I said nothing, as I took this in, but Rogerson
continued, "You've had a pretty good run, but I think we've got enough to
convict you now. I feel like giving you a good hiding; what do you say about
that?" "There'd be consequences if you did that," I responded,
indignantly. "What do you mean by that?" he asked angrily. "What
would you do if I assaulted you?" I replied, rhetorically.”Rogerson jumped
up and kicked over the chair I was on, saying, "You f______g c__t, are you
threatening me?" I fell onto the floor, and he came alongside me, kicking
me in the side. He repeated his question as he dropped his knee onto my
diaphragm, stopping me breathing. I moved my hands onto his knee to remove the
pressure and he drove his knee up into my chin. "Are you threatening
me?" he demanded again, and I replied "I'm not threatening you".
I noticed my lower lip was split……

Public
and ABC radio we the boldest sector of the mass media in critically discussing
issues of my case, both before and after the trial. Public radio journalists
Adrian Flood, John Tognolini and Fiona Sewell ran investigative features on the
case as it unfolded. ABC radio journalist Sharon Davis presented 'Background
Briefing' reports on the Pederick story as well as Denning and prisoner‑informers,
the latter being an important influence on the eventual decision to hold an
ICAC inquiry into the prisoner‑informer issue.”

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"A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction." Graham Greene

Guests I've had on Radio.

Russell Crowe, Amanda Dole and myself outside Radio Redfern, May Day 1989. Russell had just performed a few songs on my show, Radio Solidarity. Amanda is an organiser for the National Union of Workers.

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Togs's Place.Com is a massive blog/web site. To get around and find articles you want or just explore, use the SEARCH BLOG, if you enter Noam Chomsky, you'll not only come up with numerous articles, speeches, interviews by and with Chomsky, but also being referred to in articles by Robert Fisk, John Pilger, Naomi Kline and myself. With Blogger you've got to scroll down from the most recent till the oldest. Every posting has a label ie, New Romans;Middle East from May 18 07 to today, this is a new system I've adopted for labels, previous labels on this topic were New Romans;Middle East 4, 3, 2, 1. These numbers go backwards to when I started this site in October 2006. New Romans;Middle East from May 18 07 to today will relabeled New Romans;Middle East from May 18 to June 10 07 for easy reference and the new label will be New Romans;Middle East from June 10 07 to today. The Recent Posts is the quick link to my Recent Postings. The Links can take you to 170 different web sites in Australia and around the World.

It's been a learning experience for me operating this blog but there is an insatiable hunger for alternative news and opinion on a range of issues in Australia that is often ignored or sidelined by the corporate media and an increasing self censored and Murdoch managed ABC.

Journalists and Writers I Like.

"Bread and work and love, the poor man’s trinity, and by all three needs they chain him down." Christina Stead 1902-1983 Seven Poor Men of Sydney

"Every government is run by liars and nothing should be believed." I.F.Stone 1907-89

"I have made more friends for American culture than the State Department. Certainly I have made fewer enemies, but that isn't very difficult." Arthur Miler 1915-2005

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." George Orwell 1903-50

"It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understandig the hidden agendas of the message that surrounds it." John Pilger

"Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war - for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I'd say we deserve ours more." Joesph Heller 1923-99

"Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism." Graham Greene 1904-91

"My experience in the First World War and now the Second World War [his son Barney was killed in the Battle of Singapore] changed my outlook on things. It is hard to believe that there is a God. I feel the Bible is a book written by man but for the purpose of preying on a person’s conscience, and to confuse him. Anyone who taken part in a bayonet charge (and I have) [Gallipoli], and has managed to retain his proper senses, must doubt the truth of the Bible and the powers of God, if one exists. And considering the many hundreds of different religions that there are in this world of ours, and the fact that many religions have caused terrible wars and hatreds throughout the world, and that many religions that have hoarded tremendous wealth and property while people inside and outside religion are starving , it is difficult to remain a believer. No Sir, there is no God, it is only a myth." Albert Facey 1894-1982 A Fortunate Life

"Now take my case. I’m twenty-nine and have two brothers—one in the Liberal Party and one serving six years for rape and arson. My sister Peg is on the streets and Dad lives off her earnings. Mum is pregnant by the boarder and because of this Dad won’t marry her. Last night I got engaged to an ex-prostitute and I wish to be fair to her: should I tell her about my brother in the Liberal Party." David Ireland 1927- The Unknown Industrial Prisoner

"Prime Minster Howard I’ve heard You met George Bush and the Pope too, I understand, Oh I liked the Pope much better, I only had to kiss his hand." L’Amour Denis Kevans 1939-2005

"The first law of journalism-to confirm existing prejudice rather than contradict it." Alexander Cockburn

"The Labour Party [ALP], starting with a band of inspired Socialists, degenerated into a vast machine for capturing political power, but did not know how to use the power when attained except for the profit of individuals[...] Such is the history of all Labour organisations in Australia, and not because they are Australian , but because they are Labour..." Victor Gordon Childe 1892-1957, How Labour Governs

"The trouble with a free market economy is that it requires so many policemen to make it work." Neal Ascherson, 1932- Games with the Shadows, Policing the Marketplace.

"The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. " Major General Smedley Butler,1881-1940

"What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one." Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956

"Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?" Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

[Battler]" a conscientious person working against many odds to make a living; one whose life is a constant struggle.’ Battlers maybe men or women; black or white. They rarely deal with racism (the negative side of our tradition) because they sympathise with anyone facing adversity or unfair criticism. The term ‘battler’ is a state of mind-a traditional attitude which goes back to the convict era, when the battler was on a flogging to nothing but fiddled around the rules and held his masters in contempt. The battlers are aware that they are being lied to by....politicians; and they suspect that Keating’s warning that Australia could become a banana republic is in fact, happening before their eyes." Frank Hardy 1917-1994. Retreat Australia Fair 1990

I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer. Brendan Behan 1923-64

“I do what I do, and write what I write, without calculating what is worth what and so on. Fortunately, I am not a banker or an accountant. I feel that there is a time when a political statement needs to be made and I make it.” Arundhati Roy